An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Chunking Learning On The Quality Of Diplomatic Interpreting

Since the argument that the quantity of chunks employed in interpreting positively associates with the quality of interpreting has been supported by a number of theoretical and empirical studies,chunk learning has become a hot topic in interpreting studies.More and more researchers are interested in exploring effective ways to increase interpreters' output of chunks in their performance.However,chunk learning in existing studies is dominated by repetitive memorizing exercises,because most researchers only notice that chunks are ready-made word combinations and can be used holistically without further analysis,which can save interpreters much effort in language production so as to better fulfill other tasks in interpreting,such as listening,comprehension and memorizing.The generative power of chunks,or how the patterns in learnt chunks can be generalized as frameworks to create new chunks,fails to draw much attention.Given the challenges constantly posed by new and unfamiliar information and expressions related to diverse topics and unique speaking styles of speakers in interpreting,the generative power of chunks has a large role to play in enabling interpreters to learn and use chunks in a flexible and creative way so as to deal with these challenges.Therefore,focusing on the generative power of chunks,this empirical study mainly discusses how interpreters can achieve a better knowledge and command of chunks,especially the generative power of chunks through chunk learning process and the impact of such chunk learning process on the quality of interpreting,particularly in terms of accuracy and fluency.With an experiment designed under the guidance of Michael Lewis' Lexical Approach and taking diplomatic speeches that have a high degree of chunk density as testing materials,this study has made the following discoveries:(1)compared with the traditional Present-Practice-Produce method employed by existing chunk learning studies,the Observation-Hypothesis-Experiment paradigm proposed in Lewis' Lexical Approach enables interpreters to have a better understanding and command of chunks and their generative power;(2)A better understanding and command of chunks and their generative power resulted from chunk learning process has a positive impact on the accuracy of interpreting,particularly in increasing the ratio of complete and error-free information points and reducing the number of grammatical mistakes;(3)Such learning process turns out to have no significant impact on the fluency of interpreting.These findings will hopefully open up some new perspectives to future studies on chunks,chunk learning and their influence on the quality of interpreting and bring some inspirations to interpreting teaching.